A BIT OF ART IN HYDE PARK
Words by Jessica Peace
We LOVE our plants but we like a bit of arty too, so we took a stroll down Hyde Park to have a gander at this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion.
ESCOBEDO’S PAVILLION
Every year The Serpentine Gallery throws down the challenge for an architect to design their temporary summer pavilion, this year it’s Frida Escobedo’s turn - and it is right up our alley. Why? Well, not only does it look f’ing stunning but her concepts are RAD.
Architects are always asked to think of the pavillion in terms of it being in a public space (Hyde Park) but Escobedo has connected her build to the rest of Blighty and then some. The pavillion is made in the style of a ‘breeze wall’ - and trust us, this is the BEST place to cool down in this mental 30℃ summer we’re having - not complaining promise.
It’s all a bit sexy inside, dark materials, mirrored ceilings and a shallow pool to push your toes through; everything reflecting and reacting with the sky and the trees - just the way we like our art, working with Mother Nature.
Escobedo even asked the chap on the lawn mower not to come too close, letting a bit of wildness grow into the structure - our kinda gal. The concrete tiles that make up the structure were chosen for their wave pattern, repeating the lapping of the serpentine lake and the light moves through the gaps in the structure, tracking time.
The concrete will weather and decay, this was Escobedo’s intention; the structure becoming a home for moss, lichen, birds and insects, allowing for life and imperfection, in this respect it’s a growing structure. Now for the geometry and politics bit. So, the pavilion’s ‘pivoted axis’ lines up to the ‘Prime Meridian’ - the line that runs from the North to the South Pole via Greenwich - basically the line that Britain at its height of empire set the world’s watch by. Escobedo has connected her pile of tiles to park life, politics and, well time - get yourselves in it.
HOW MUCH?
Free as a bird mate
GET ME THERE?
Easy, jump on a bus/ tube/ Boris bike to Hyde Park or walk along Green Park from town, takes about 20 minutes from Piccadilly.
LET ME IN...
Pavilion and cafe are open 10am - 6pm daily until 7th October
Checkout events from cooking, curatorial talks and Frida Escobedo herself (we’ll be fighting you for a seat at that one) all happening in the pavilion over the summer here.
@SerpentineUK
@fridaescobedo